The Department of Immigration and Border Protection

Labour market testing has been introduced as a requirement for employers in the subclass 457 visa programme. We’ve developed some answers for the five most asked questions about this change.

1. What is labour market testing?

The introduction of the labour market testing requirement doesn’t change the intent of the 457 visa programme—it just means that now employers must advertise vacant jobs before sponsoring a temporary worker from overseas and provide the department with evidence of their attempts to recruit Australian workers and why these attempts were unsuccessful.

The 457 visa programme is designed to help businesses meet short-term skill needs. It has always been the intent of the programme that businesses look to the local labour market prior to sourcing overseas workers to fill job vacancies.

No. Some occupations are exempt from labour market testing. Additionally, Australia has a number of trade agreements with other countries where we have agreed that labour market testing would not be required in relation to various categories of entrants. A list of the occupations that require market testing and circumstances where labour market testing is not required due to an international trade obligation can be found on the department’s website.

3. What do I need to provide to meet the labour market testing requirement?

Employers need to provide information about all advertising or other recruitment efforts made during the past 12 months in relation to the nominated occupation. To help employers we have published a Domestic Recruitment Summary Table, to access this table go to the “Nominate” tab, open the heading “Who can nominate” and scroll down to the title “Mandatory evidence”. Employers can use this table to summarise their recruitment information to include with their nomination.

Yes. Employers can use social media to advertise a vacant position. As with all other forms of advertising or recruitment efforts, employers will need to provide information about the process they undertook and the results the advertising produced.

5. How is this information included in the eVisa nomination?

The eVisa nomination form asks a number of questions about how an employer has tested the labour market. In addition to answering the questions, evidence needs to be attached to the application, such as copies of job advertisements, invoices for job advertisements or the Domestic Recruitment Summary Table. You can attach documents (PDF format is preferred) to the application once payment details have been provided. If evidence of the advertising or recruitment efforts is not attached the application cannot be approved and it will be refused.